Transnational Knowledge: A symposium on the production and circulation of scholarship in translation

Featuring “A Critique of Provincial Reason: Located Cosmopolitanisms and the Infrastructures of Theoretical Translation,” at 10:15 am with Ignacio Sánchez Prado (Romance Languages & Literatures, Latin American Studies, Film & Media Studies, Washington University) and “Translation and the Archive” at 2 pm with Ignacio Infante (Comparative Literature and Romance Languages & Literatures). How does knowledge change as it moves from one academic language culture to another? How “placed” are our intellectual concepts? In what ways does the dominance of English-language scholarship shape the production of knowledge around the world? Who is qualified to undertake a scholarly translation? This two-day, online symposium will address these and many other questions related to the location of scholarship in translation. School of Arts and Humanities, University of Texas at Dallas.

International Writers Series: Anca Roncea

In this virtual reading and discussion, Anca Roncea, translator and comparative literature doctorate student in the track for international writers, will discuss her translation of Tribar from the Romanian by Andra Rotaru (Saturnalia Books, 2022). Roncea will be joined in discussion by Mary Jo Bang, poet, translator and professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis. 

Anca Roncea grew up in Romania, speaks Modern Greek, French, and writes in English. Through her work, Anca explores the space where language can create pivots in the midst of displacement, while incorporating the aesthetics of Constantin Brancusi and the female artists of the Dada Movement. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, which is the University of Iowa’s Literary Translation MFA program. Anca’s poetry has been published in the Berkeley Poetry Review, Beecher’s Magazine, Omniverse, the Bare Life Review, and Lana Turner. She is currently working on her first book of poetry, which is an experimental translation of Tristan Tzara’s Vingt-Cinq Poèmes focusing on the period of WWI Zurich Dada and the female artists of the Dada Movement.

College Behind Bars: WashU’s Prison Education Project

In 2014, a group of faculty began offering WashU liberal arts courses to students incarcerated at Missouri Eastern Correctional Center. Those courses grew into degree programs, which were enriched with reading groups, lectures, chess,and performances, and supported through tutors and research assistants. Since its founding, the Prison Education Project has awarded 35 degrees, launched a re-entry program, expanded to a women’s facility, and supported the design and development of a Learning Management System created by incarcerated programmers, for incarcerated students. Join us for a conversation with Sean Armstrong, dean, University College; Jim Brock, WashU 2021, PEP alumnus and re-entry alumni coordinator; Rob Henke, PEP founding director; and Kennedy Young, WashU 2022, PEP tutor and book club facilitator, who will discuss the program, the joys and challenges of learning and re-entry, and the students who amaze and inspire them. The event will be moderated by Pat Matthews, associate dean for academics, University College. 

This event is presented by University College in partnership with WashU Engage.

Register to attend virtually.

Matthias Goritz with translator Mary Jo Bang - Colonies of Paradise: Poems

Left Bank Books presents Washington University professor, contemporary German novelist, poet, and translator, Matthias Göritz, and acclaimed poet and translator, Mary Jo Bang to discuss the first book of poetry by Matthias Göritz to be available in English Colonies of Paradise: Poems in store on November 2nd at 7pm! 

Masks required for in person attendance

Please RSVP for the presentation here

Virtually at Left Bank Books' Facebook Live Page or YouTube Page

MATTHIAS GÖRITZ is a poet, translator, and novelist. He has written four poetry collections, Loops, Pools, Tools, and Spools; three novels, including Der kurze Traum des Jakob Voss ( The Brief Dream of Jakob Voss) and Parker; and three novellas. He has received the Hamburg Literature Prize, the Mara Cassens Prize, the Robert Gernhardt Prize, and the William Gass Award. He teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.

MARY JO BANG is the author of eight books of poetry--including Elegy: Poems, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award--and the translator of Dante's Inferno, illustrated by Henrik Drescher, and Purgatorio. She has received a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Berlin Prize Fellowship. She teaches creative writing at Washington University in St. Louis.

The first book of poetry by Matthias Göritz to be available in English, in a translation by a renowned writer

Very few books of poetry by contemporary German writers are available to English-speaking readers. In Colonies of Paradise, acclaimed poet and translator Mary Jo Bang introduces the poems of novelist, poet, and translator Matthias Göritz, one of the most exciting German writers publishing today. The poems in this book, which originally appeared in German under the title Loops, take the reader on a tour of Paris, Chicago, Hamburg, and Moscow as they explore childhood, travel, and the human experience. Unsettling our expectations about adulthood, the book permeates the quotidian with a disquieting strangeness that leads us deeper into our own lives and histories. Göritz's sly humor, keen insight, and artistry are brought to the fore in Bang's careful and innovative translation, allowing an English-language audience to enter fully the intricate interiority of Göritz's work.

"Matthias Göritz is a poet of tremendous gifts and knowledge. His unique poetic voice is grounded and marked by historical and personal scars and horizons, which make his writing profound, intelligent, musical, playful, and innovative. A must for anyone with interest in contemporary European poetry." --Ales Steger, author of The Book of Things

"There are no neat stories and anecdotes here: the flashes of perception, of understanding, are given to us via stark metaphors, images, unpredictable syntax, musical structures that are by turns surprising and illuminating . . . This is the kind of art that is never willing to rest, always in motion. Matthias Göritz is an original, talented contemporary German poet, and translator Mary Jo Bang is one of the most interesting poets currently at work in the English language. Bravo." --Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic: Poems

"Matthias Göritz's Colonies of Paradise is unlike any book of American poetry I can recall reading. It's a close-up, high speed tour of life, passing through various world cities--none of them home, yet each haunted by the gargoyle-like figures of Mother and Father. This may be the 'Giant Redeye Cicada' eye view of modern human existence--what one can see when one gives up thinking one understands. The book is rendered into sharp, pithy, idiomatic English by the poet and translator Mary Jo Bang, who has recently translated Dante. With her help, Göritz asks, 'Isn't it time we went missing?'" --Rae Armantrout, author of Finalists

Matthias Göritz with translator Mary Jo Bang - ‘Colonies of Paradise: Poems’

The first book of poetry by Matthias Göritz to be available in English, in a translation by a renowned writer.

Very few books of poetry by contemporary German writers are available to English-speaking readers. In Colonies of Paradise, acclaimed poet and translator Mary Jo Bang introduces the poems of novelist, poet and translator Matthias Göritz, one of the most exciting German writers publishing today. The poems in this book, which originally appeared in German under the title Loops, take the reader on a tour of Paris, Chicago, Hamburg and Moscow as they explore childhood, travel and the human experience. Unsettling our expectations about adulthood, the book permeates the quotidian with a disquieting strangeness that leads us deeper into our own lives and histories. Göritz’s sly humor, keen insight and artistry are brought to the fore in Bang’s careful and innovative translation, allowing an English-language audience to enter fully the intricate interiority of Göritz’s work.

MATTHIAS GÖRITZ is a poet, translator, and novelist. He has written four poetry collections, Loops, Pools, Tools and Spools; three novels, including Der kurze Traum des Jakob Voss (The Brief Dream of Jakob Voss) and Parker; and three novellas. He has received the Hamburg Literature Prize, the Mara Cassens Prize, the Robert Gernhardt Prize and the William Gass Award. He teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.

MARY JO BANG is the author of eight books of poetry — including Elegy: Poems, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award — and the translator of Dante’s Inferno, illustrated by Henrik Drescher, and Purgatorio. She has received a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Berlin Prize Fellowship. She teaches creative writing at Washington University in St. Louis.

Translating Poetry (It’s Not Easy): Matthias Goeritz and Mary Jo Bang

Join us for an evening celebrating the publication of Colonies of Paradise (Triquarterly, 2022) by Matthias Goeritz, Professor of Practice of Comparative Literature, and translated by Mary Jo Bang, Professor of English. Goeritz and Bang will discuss the innovative new translation of the original German work, which takes the reader on a tour of Paris, Chicago, Hamburg, and Moscow, exploring themes of childhood, travel, and the human experience. As practitioners of both poetry and the translation of poetry, our two authors will converse about the tricky but crucial work of literary translation.

Matthias Goeritz is a poet, translator, and novelist. He has written four poetry collections, Loops, Pools, Tools and Spools; three novels, including Der kurze Traum des Jakob Voss (The Brief Dream of Jakob Voss) and Parker; and three novellas. He has received the Hamburg Literature Prize, the Mara Cassens Prize, the Robert Gernhardt Prize, and the William Gass Award.

Mary Jo Bang is the author of eight books of poetry—including Elegy: Poems, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award—and the translator of Dante’s Inferno, illustrated by Henrik Drescher, and Purgatorio. She has received a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Berlin Prize Fellowship.